The arrangement of human settlement goes back over 8,000 years. It not only involves the arrangement of buildings with connective means (roads), but also to the concept of individual land ownership. In the earliest of time, before the invention of money, large parcels of land were used as payment for favors bestowed upon associates of the ruler of the society. Those parcels were then sub-divided into smaller units again given to others in return to do some favorable action. Based upon location of the parcels and sub-parcels, houses were built and pathways (later roads) created to facilitate movement of the early village settlement. Most of these earliest sub-divisions of land occurred along meandering paths, but were later refined into square or rectangular intersections with 90 degree corners. In areas were land was not flat, but rather hilly; pathways and roads developed in level contours that facilitated movement back and forth. It must be understood that these earliest settlements were never created with an ecological understanding of the effects of human settlement concentration upon the land or flora and fauna.
The earliest settlements were small, but as human populations grew with the advent of farming, cities began to form. There was very little understanding of the function of a city. The first municipal activity was to improve the supply of water to the village. Later, the protection of a clean water supply was developed, that was not contaminated, so as to not make people sick. Eventually, it was understood that a means to eliminate human waste (urine and excrement) was necessary. Eventually the construction of durable roads was added to the assemblage that formed the design of cities. Concurrently to the development of early infrastructure was the development of building engineering to make bigger and better structures.
Design and formation of cities has not changed much for 2,000 years since the times of the Roman Empire. Many of the shapes of larger buildings and individual houses bear resemblance to those of Rome, while still maintaining city organization patterns dating back 2,500 years prior in Mehenjo-Daro in current day Pakistan.
The Twentieth Century saw the most significant changes to city development due to the common integration of new electrical energy systems powered mainly by fossil fuels, new agricultural technology spawned by oil and natural gas by-products, new transportation systems, again created from oil derivatives, and the advent of lighting and elevator technology which changed our abilities to venture vertically instead of horizontally. Yet, perhaps the greatest change to civilization and cities is the advent of the computer which drew a milestone in Mankind's ability to design new and improved structures. Further, in the last one hundred years power and communication systems were added to an increasingly complex infrastructure system that now has over 16 different sectors in the U.S. Most of these systems were never designed for increased systems loads added by a continuous population growth or the longevity requirements placed on a finitely aging system. For example, an existing sprawling city sources all food, water and fossil-fuel derived energy from outside the existing sprawling city, which are used only once and then disposed as unecological waste, causing landfill problems, solid waste issues and black water contamination of land, ground water, and lakes. Most native habitat is eliminated and destroyed with existing spawling cities. It requires 6 times as much land with respect to an area occupied by an existing sprawling city to generate such external inputs (food, water, energy) to meet the demands of such an existing sprawling city. Being low-density, an existing sprawling city of 2 million will need about 300 square miles of land for its citizens. This city is depicted as having a physically large and ecologically unsustainable ecological footprint of about 6.0 global hectares (gha).
Development potential of existing city systems is being thwarted by archaic land ownership constraints and a very conservative approach to urban design.
Population pressures and the desire for the benefits of city life are causing the largest migration in history, of billions of people leaving the countryside and moving into the city. In the high population countries of Asia, the need for a new paradigm in urban design must occur. It is paramount to stop forcing high-density living desires into an incompatible low density infrastructure model. Rapid city-migration is in the beginning stages with over 3 billion people moving into cities during next 30 years. However, this migration will not work with the current design of newly built cities due to the present operational patterns of energy production, transportation, water and waste requirements, food availability, and clean-air requirements. An important over-looked and prevalent problem is health, sanitation and controlling the spread of contagious diseases that can sweep through a high-density city in a matter of days.
Cities are the driving force of the world economy and also the major disruptor of the Earth's environmental stability. Urban development has been focused on arranging buildings to suit the needs of people and business with little thought as to what is happening to the environment. When the human population was small, and cities were in their infancy, ecological balance was not necessary. Yet, since 1989, human consumption of Earth's extracted materials has exceeded the Earth's bio-capacity of 1.0 and climbed to 1.32. This means the Earth's capability to re-generate extracted materials is less than what humans are consuming. Humankind is increasing consumption within a finite and decreasing supply of resources.
As such, humanity is building its civilization upon a ground work of cities that is dysfunctional and flawed when confronted with the higher populations of the last 100 years. This process failure is compounded with continued dependence on primitive energy sources that are disrupting the environment and the use of transportation that was never designed to work for high-density cities.
Cities now contain over 50% of the human population and they are projected to rise to over 70% in the next 35 years. They consume 85% of all materials while occupying only 3.1% of the Earth's surface (Grimm N., Faeth S., Golubiewski N., (2008), “Global Change and the Ecology of Cities”, Science, V.319, 756-760). The current system rewards the single use of materials for convenience while creating a huge waste flow that is ultimately returned back to Nature in a most economically expeditious manner. This huge imbalance of consumption and waste is stressing the environment beyond healthy limits. Without improving city-systems, a very dramatic and quick demise will occur. At a tipping point (i.e. known as Abrupt Climate Change according to the Committee of Abrupt Climate Change) the Earth's ecosystems may quickly cascade to an extreme, irreversible and disastrous situation, threatening all lifeforms as they are known.
Groundwater, clean drinking water existing in underground aquifers under the surface of the Earth for hundreds of thousands of years, is one of the Earth's most precious assets. It is squandered most flagrantly by those that have it and desired most fervently by those who need it.
As we destroy the oceans and cut down forests, the generators of oxygen (blue-green algae) are decimated as well. Within a matter of one hundred years oxygen levels may drop from 20% to 10% with resultant anoxia similar to what has occurred during other great extinction events. This will all occur if humanity continues to release Greenhouse Gas into the atmosphere, destroy more natural habitat and pollute the oceans (Warner M., Fu F., Zhang Y., (2007), “Effects of Increased Temperature & CO2 on Photosynthesis, Growth 8 Elemental Ratios in Marine Synechococcus and Prochlorococcus (Cyanobacteria)”, J. Phycology, V.43, 485-496).
Climate change is a word used to generally describe the cumulative effects of the disruptive forces of mankind. However, one of the main causes of the Earth's destabilization or ecosystem disruption is the destruction of the natural habitat of billions of creatures who were displaced by farms and cities. The farms have depleted the soils of natural nutrients and now use excessive amounts of fertilizers and pesticides in order to grow crops. They use excessive amounts of water (due to irrigation inefficiency) to produce the crops with over 50 gallons to produce a pound of edible cereal grain. The meat, dairy and poultry industries produce food through an even more inefficient process of taking feed grown elsewhere and giving it to the animals. It takes over 1,847 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef and 582 gallons of water to produce a pound of chicken. The chemicals used in animal production are flushed into the groundwater at feedlots where the animals are raised. Urine and manure waste travels through the ground, into ground water, rivers, lakes and end up meeting the ocean at estuaries. There, nitrogenous contaminants react with algae causing blooms that de-oxygenate the water, killing sea life. While 74% of the planet is covered with water, only 1.5% of this water is usable as uncontaminated drinking water. Yet in many countries, we flush our toilets, wash our clothes and water our lawns with quality water that is being wasted.
Climate change is chiefly caused by the burning of fossil fuels that produce CO2, CH4, SO2, NO2, arsenic, and mercury. The largest perpetrator of pollutants are coal fired electric plants, as the coal used is not pure and contains many contaminants that are combusted during the heating process. Coal powered electrical generation accounts for 50% of all CO2 generation; with 75% of that used in electric and heat generation, as well as 25% used in manufacturing. Refined oil (gasoline) accounts for another 25% of CO2, and fuel oil for heating another 5% of CO2 generation. Natural gas releases about 15% of all CO2, used for electric generation and heating in houses. A secondary effect of CO2 generation is the interaction of atmospheric CO2 with the surface of the oceans. There is a chemical reaction that occurs causing CO2 to be converted in H2CO3 carbonic acid. This is causing great damage to the oceans resulting in ocean acidification that is decalcifying much of the marine life, including severe damage to coral around the world. As such, climate change and imbalances caused by human activity is permanently affecting wildlife diversity and animal and human welfare.
Another action that accentuates climate change (global warming) is the way humans are currently building their cities with continuous hard, heat absorbing surfaces (asphalt roads and concrete buildings) resulting in a phenomenon called “Heat Islands”. This can increase heat by 4-5 degrees C. in the center of the city. These structures absorb heat rather than reflecting it or converting solar energy into organic matter from photosynthesis.
Most of the climate change issues that are arising have occurred within the last 60 years. Our awareness of these issues has only come to full fruition within the last 40 years. Unfortunately, both urban planners and architects have yet to integrate urban ecology into their realms to create a viable solution that works with nature as well as people.
Various agreements and conferences have been arranged between political entities to agree upon international regulations for addressing climate change. However, such arrangements usually result in a status quo and no subsequent useful change.
Various systems exist that attempt to address some of the concerns above. However, these current systems unfortunately rely on the use of standard infrastructure such as roads, combustion engine cars, and delivery trucks for transportation (obtaining only 20.8% energy utilization efficiency according to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), and an electric grid with long distance electrical transport. Such currently existing long distance electrical transport systems merely have about 33% efficiency, resulting in a 67% loss. Existing systems further neglect the ecologically sustainable production and consumption of resources such as energy, food, and clean water, neglect global wildlife diversity or human welfare, or are focused on small-scale housing of inhabitants. The existing systems further neglect disease prevention for inhabitants.
Accordingly, there is an established need for a realistic solution for humans to live in harmony with nature.